For those who already know how to harness the power of their site stats and how to adjust their site focus, this article will be a real breeze. For those who are just getting into blogging and finding their way, this might be handy.
Reading your site stats whether you use your StatPress plugin (for WordPress users), Google Analytics, Quantcast, Lijit or some other tool, your stats will tell you quite a few things:
1. How many people come to your site
2. Where your visitors entered your site
3. What your visitors were looking for
4. How long your visitors stayed on your site
5. Where your visitors left your site
6. What areas your visitors stayed longest on
Of course there are more, but the above are just some of the general ones. The goal is to retain some of those visitors and keep them coming back. Whether you apply nifty plugins like the Thank Me Later plugin (for WordPress users), or invite people to subscribe to your RSS feed, have Subscribe to Comments, subscribe to your site’s newsletter, or have a few featured posts that are eyecatching, you are trying to achieve whatever goal you have set for your website. However, the hard work can be seen in your stats.
You can install as many plugins or try as many tricks, but your control over your content is very essential. The rate at which you publish your articles could harm your site. Although you could pump out many articles per day, it may not be ideal if you are the sole owner of the blog. You might run out of topics and into the proverbial ‘Writer’s Block’ also known as Bloggers Block. On the other hand, if the time between your articles leave your visitors feeling like they are pulling teeth just waiting for your next post, you may be hurting your site.
Your stats can help you come up with the perfect formula for your blog to not just regulate, but improve your site statistics. Here are a few pointers to make sense of your stats.
- Always compare your stats on a day-to-day basis. Even this small of time can help you in the long run as you can plan posts to reach more of your visitors since they are more apt to visit at one time of day versus another time.
- Make sure to check what people are searching for on your website. If you do not have it and it is relevant to your website, perhaps you should consider writing about the topic?
- Check how long your visitors are staying and think about ways you could implement tools to increase that time.
- Check your referral links (where your visitors came from) and determine how effective those links have been. If they are from other bloggers, find out if they are recommending you are be an ambassador to your site by thanking them for giving your site a shout out.
What other suggestions would you have for others to help people make sense of their stats? How often do you check your stats?
This relates closely to my mothership post. I check my google analytics everyday (as it has a 24 hour turn over on stats) and i have WordPress stats installed as well. As my blog has a lot to do with areas of internet usage, i have also been par-taking in some drafts of blog tutorials and blog sandboxes. Analytics has allowed me to taylor some of my posts to what the readers is searching for!
This is a great post and I will be watching ur blog closely.
You didn’t even mention Woopra?
I have a list of sites for a later article. There are plenty out there dedicated to site stats.
I like statcounter but they don’t list if you get a visitor from a tweet but only from your twitter profile “/
Thank you for this. This happens to be one of the steps I miss with my blogging.
The latest version of the Google Analytics is enough for me. It displays everything I need. Except for some keywords that Google won’t make you see except if you paid for it.
Interesting post. I am using Google Analytics myself and it shows me all I need to know. The only thing is that I need to take action based on what I see there. Another useful thing is the Alexa plugin, which shows you your inbound links.
i think google analytices is a good tool and i use it often
Nile,
Great post as usual. Before we get started. I use Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools to see what keywords people are using to find my site. And the list that each produces is always very different from each other? I wonder what that’s about. But as you said, we need to pay attention to why people are coming to our site (what keywords are they using to find us). I also LOVE to find out WHERE people find me (what are the referrer sites!). For instance, my my site uses mostly videos so that YouTube is the #1 referring site, no surprise. However, my second greatest referring site is Facebook! Who knew? Watching them daily stats move up and down really motivates me to create that next video and embed it into my next blog post! BTW I love, love, love Statcounter. I pay $7 per month but there is also a GREAT free version as well.
Thanks for sharing!
— Jupiter Jim p.s. Definitely need to syndicate this article!
I hate to admit that I studied Physics and Business, and Google Analytics took me a few hours to figure out. I give credit to those who can just run with it. Very nice post!
-Matt
Hi Nile, thank you for this great article. I must read more your posts. I watch and analyse my site stats daily. Very interesting info is about rate of new posts. Until today I never thought that writing many articles/posts may hurt blog or site. It is very useful information. Thank you for this. Keep up good work and now I can not wait to read related posts to this one.
Have a nice day.
Petr Kovanda
Hi Nile, I use feedjit widget on wordpress so I can track down topics that my readers are searching in real time.
Awesome blog. Very informative. Your blog is very valuable from the blogger’s mind. Keep it up!
I’ve been using Google Analyticator plugin for sometime and I found it user easy to use and understand – I did wonder if the Google Analyticatics for WordPress might give me any greater insights though.
I really appreciate the information that you shared in your post ‘Webmaster 101: Making sense of Your Site Stats’. Of particular interest to me is the WordPress StatPress plugin, which seems to be very customizable. It is very important to study the traffic statistics to ones site. It is truly amazing the information that is now available to us, however for a newbie all this information can be overwhelming.
I used to spend a lot of time on my stats but now I decided to implement better time management and concentrate on what actually helps me improve them 🙂
One thing I would like to add – integrating Google Webmaster tools and analytics allows me to see a more comprehensive statistics.
Sadly, I have Google Analytics but don’t use it that often. I will sometimes look at the “Traffic Sources” to get an idea where folks are coming from.
But I realize there’s so much more I can be doing. Hopefully, your post will get me moving on that.
I am determine with the analysis on a day-to-day interval. Even this little of your energy and effort can help you in the long run as you can strategy content to go to more of your guests since they are more apt to analyze out at once of day when in evaluation to another time!
I’m Strongly Agree With You 🙂 Making Sense of Your Site Stats Is Most Important role play in our business And We Should Make It In Blogs 🙂 Blogger’s Are Much More Earn To Do This Things 🙂 B/w Thankyou So Much For Supporting Us 🙂
I am also one that does not pay enough attention to analytics -though I should…
The only thing is that I need to take action based on what I see there. Another useful thing is the Alexa plugin, which shows you your inbound links. Thanks for sharing.
Rhoda! Rather than installing the plugin, you can just go to Alexa and get the stats. Better for your site’s load time.
Very nice contain…thank you for this great article. I must read more your posts. I watch and analyse my site stats daily. Very interesting info is about rate of new posts.
http://www.findghar.com
This is very important when someone is looking for stats on their site…good post Nile
Google analytic’s is a road map within it’s self Niles!
You’re so right, it offers a ton of extremely practical stats,
that if applied properly, can definitely help us
make our sites way more user friendly!
Which in the long run, make our sites far more appealing to
our specific target audiences.
Thank for offering so many extremely practical,non complicated tips!